Start All Over
by Procrastinating Penguin
Summary: Aoko is dead. Kaito does the unthinkable to bring her back. Pairing: Aoko x Kaito? Read to find out. Reviews would be much appreciated!


Disclaimer: Do not own. Would be nice if I do. But don't. Sigh.

"_Kuroba-kun."_

He blinked.

For a brief moment he was lost. He couldn't remember where and who he was. He looked up, blinked, and found a pair of deep scarlet eyes staring right back into his unseeing ones. Koizumi Akako was sitting across from him, hands folded under her chin, staring, watching him. He was suddenly aware of the rigidity of the metallic chair that dug into his back and brightness of the room. He was suddenly cold. And damp.

"_Aoko - _" it was the first word that slipped from his frozen lips. His mouth opened without even his brain registering doing so. It was automatic - almost reflexive - to utter the name. And yet there it stopped. Aoko... Aoko what? He felt as if he was trapped in a haze... there was something he wanted to say... he _needed _to say... and yet, he couldn't bring himself to speak... or do anything, for that matter. His muscles were tensed, nerves taut. And yet he sat in the chair, his limbs heavy by his side.

_Aoko..._

"Kai - Kuroba-kun." The soft, but enunciated voice pierced through the fog. Sharp. "Can you... can you hear me?" The question was tentative, cautious. Like a parent asking a small child who might flare into an explosive tantrum right then and there.

"I - what - can't - Aoko -" he struggled. It was right on his lips, his mind, the void in his soul. He squinted his eyes shut. His gloved hands (when had he slipped them on?) clenched at his tie, his breast-pocket, as he doubled over - literally from the wrenching pain that burst forth from his stomach. "_Aoko is dead._" Finally, he gasped out.

And there, the mist broke.

And the pain came rushing back. Like a tidal wave the grief and the shock and the pain engulfed him, swallowed and clenched at his insides, hard, as if a giant fist had reached in and squeezed. The nausea washed over him as the memories came flodding back - the way the blue eyes (and God, how they're blue and how quickly they hadfadedintoblackbuttheyweresoblueinthemoonlight - ) darken in that one second, the way her face crumbled and her body, which had been so filled with life and energy just that morning, fell, limp, lifeless, like a puppet that had its strings severed, broken, and down, down, down she had fall - so quicklyandgodwhywhyaokowhy -

He might have screamed when she went down. But he couldn't be sure now. The sounds of bullets whizzing through the air and the impact of metal against flesh and the whine of police sirens drowned everything out. He remembered running, or trying to - anyway, nothing but pain and adrenaline driving his legs - he remembered something whizzing past his arm and a sharp, hot pain that followed - there was a flash of red - and the next thing he knew, a pair of strong, warm hands wrapped them around his waist and arms. And then -

Now, he found himself in Akako's kitchen.

"Aoko's dead." he repeated. His voice echoed hollowly in the kitchen. He looked up, slowly, and met the witch's eyes for the first time. He unfolded his arms from around his waist and found it covered with blood. It wasn't his.

He banished the thought from his mind at once. He couldn't afford any more remembering. Akako was watching him, quietly. A heavy silence fell in the room.

After what seemed like an eternity, he whispered hoarsely, "Why?"

Akako looked surprised for a second, then hastily resumed her usual cool demeanour. "Why what, Kuroba-kun?"

There was no emotion in his voice. "Took me away." He stared into her eyes blatantly. "It was over. I should have been arrested." There was a slight rasp to his voice. "I killed Aoko."

She shook her head. "You know that's not true." Her eyes flicked over to his right arm, where a pattern of crimson had crusted over his once snow-white sleeve. Her lips thinned. "Nothing would have been gained if you had stayed. Those men would've have gotten away, and the police would place all the blame on you." Her voice softened. "It wouldn't have been right."

"What does it matter?" he asked, more to the room than to the girl before him. Slowly, he reached up and took the broken monocle off his left eye. The glass was splintered, dotted with blood from the girl he had loved. He peered at it; with his face lowered at an angle, the bangs cast a shadow over his face that concealed the expression from the witch. His hand tightened on the eyewear. "If it weren't for me, Aoko would have never come to the heist. They were after me. Me. Aoko was innocent." His voice softened. "I should've died._ That_ would've been right."

Akako was at a loss for words. Her eyes searched the boy's face, and found it painfully void of emotions. She prayed that it was the damned Poker Face she was seeing - no face should remain as blank and dull as Kaito's after what happened that night.

And yet underneath the vacuity she sensed something else. Something was broken in the boy. It was the way his held his monocle, the four-leaf clover dangling listlessly at the side. His once nimble movements were heavy, slow, crippled.

Broken.

She closed her eyes.

Then opened them.

"Kaito," she called.

The boy looked up, there was no reaction at the lack of suffixes.

"Let me offer you a deal."


End file.
